From Self-Taught Keys Player to Musical Director with Micai George

Micai George, a self-taught keys and organ player originally from Baltimore and now serving as musical director in Birmingham, Alabama, discusses his background, learning to play without a teacher, and returning to school to learn reading and music theory. They talk about the challenges of learning to read after becoming proficient, the importance of church production and proper gear/infrastructure (inputs, snakes, stage boxes, in-ears, stems), and Micai’s influences and approach to ear training and the number system. The episode features Micai performing an Afrobeat track and the worship song “Here Is Holy” from Transformation Worship. 

Micai George

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Transcript

Speaker: 0:08

Welcome to the Worship Keys podcast. My name is Carson Bruce. We talk all things music theory, gear, industry, and ministry for your worship keys playing. I'd like to thank Aerospace Audio for being a sponsor of this episode. They create unique incredible high quality atmospheric drone pads to be used for your worship services, productions, songwriting sessions, whatever it may be. They have an analog physical drone pedal that they call atmosphere. There's actually a version three out. They also have a MIDI end capability, so you can work in tandem with Ableton Live or any other Dab that you have to be able can to control everything through that ecosystem. Or if not the physical analog pedal. They also have an iOS app that you can run the pad straight from your iPhone or iPad. It's called Aero Pads. Definitely check them out, aerospace audio.com and let's get into today's episode. Welcome back to the Worship Keys podcast. My name is Carson, and today my guest is Micai George. Bro, welcome to the podcast. Hey, thank you for having me, bro. What going on world? I'm just glad here man. I'm, I'm glad to be here, man. When you arrived, man, I said you're looking fresh. You're looking good. I haven't seen Micai in probably a few years. Y'all, we first met back Yeah. In Alabama. Yeah. Doing some gigs together. You were on, I think you were on Oregon when I first you, I think I was on Oregon at the time. Yep. And you've been playing with, you Tower of Prayer Church. Yeah. Yeah. With, uh, shaman Webster. And Chris used to play with Co O'Neal in there. Co O'Neal, yeah. Yes, CJ and the fellas. And yeah. Incredible and just a few episodes, or actually maybe just last episode, we had j Taylor on Taylor made my guy, so I'm like, I gotta have Micai on. To show all that he does. Guys, y'all are in for a treat today. You're gonna hear him play. It is actually gonna be a two part episode. 'cause I couldn't fit, I couldn't fit all the, we couldn't fit all the good content in one episode, so. Yeah. Yeah. But you're in Birmingham now. Tell us, tell everyone where are you serving right now for your church? So I'm currently serving at this church called God and Light Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Okay. We're located in Irondale, Alabama. And that's where I currently serve as MD musical director. Um. And man, we're, we're growing, we're thriving. So that's where I'm at, man. Yeah, man. Yeah. And your bro came with you today, Jayden? Yeah, my bro. Jayden bla. Awesome. Bel man. That's my boy. Yeah. And he's a drummer. A drummer. Yeah. Awesome producer as well in the making too. That's great. Yeah. Yeah. He got it. That is awesome. Speaking of, of Jayden and producer, he did offer his laptop to be used today. On today's episode. Yeah. And you, you, you said No, that's okay. Jayden, uh, I don't need that computer. I should have took him up on that one. Man. Micai has a 2014 MacBook. Is that just like, is that a MacBook Pro though? Yeah, it's a MacBook Pro. It's MacBook Pro. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, it's 16 gigabytes of Ram, and I'm telling you. Yeah, it, we were testing it out earlier and it was struggling, struggling, bad. Like I'm talking about, shorty could not handle that. Like, you know what I mean? It's too much. No, I mean, I think, I mean, you had maybe five to eight tracks you were layering at first. Maybe it was, it was like six. I think it was like four to five, maybe six. Okay. We did all the tricks. We, we tried to adjust the buffer size. We tried, we made sure all the other applications were closed. Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. And it was still struggling. Yeah. Uh, to record. But I gotta have you back on to do a whole multi-tracks from like a live arrangement, from scratch type episode, man. But today you're gonna hear Micai play some, keyboard here. So tell us a little bit about this, this first one, this Afrobeat type song. It's produced and written by one of my brothers, um, Isaiah Fogel. Um, man, incredible, just Mastermind when it comes to this music man. Of course he wrote and produced it. I can't remember the girl's name that he wrote it for. Please forgive me, if you're watching this. Just a nice vibe. Something that you listen to when you, you going to the beach. It's spring break, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And just when you in your car, you trying to vibe with your people. It's just one of those songs you play. And then the last one you're playing is from Transformation Church. Yeah. Here is Holy More of a Worship. Yes, sir. Pretty cool man. Uh, so stay tuned for that, those two songs towards the end of this episode. In fact, if you only came to hear Micai play, just skip through all this and go, I don't blame you, but I do wanna ask you Micai, you're an incredible pianist and like you play play, you really play, man. You dig into it. I, I've you on, on the organ and, and the keys both Absolutely. Tearing it up. So I do wanna ask you a little bit about your upbringing. How did you learn Piano Man? It's crazy you said that because, I always tell people like, man, it is literally a God giving gift. You know what I mean? Because I taught myself how to play, um, on all instruments from Yeah, you didn't have a teacher. That's what's crazy. So when I was coming up, when we moved to Alabama the first or second year, that was like 20 15, 20 16. Okay. My seventh grade, eighth grade year, I was going to this lady at Birmingham Southern, and I was initially going there for her to teach me how to read. By that time I was already playing, you know, I knew my chords, you know, I was. I was kind of developed in a way, you know what I mean? Yeah. To where I can handle his service at least. Right. You know what I mean? I'm, I'm 15, , I remember telling my dad one day, I said, dad, like, this ain't really what I wanna do. You know, and looking back on it, I wish I would've kept going, man, just to have that, that, that in my bag that I know how to read. Because, you know, my parents always told me like, Kai, like this is what's gonna take you to the next level you can play, but. If you want to get the bigger cause, the stability and all that, like you gotta know how to read your music. And that's why I am in school for now to learn how to read and stuff like that. Oh, awesome. Yeah, so, well, I'm going back to school to learn how to Okay. Read music and finish my music theory and all that. That's great. But to answer your question, um, yeah, man, um, just taught myself how to play and, and it is just like. I just grew over time, you know what I mean? Um, it didn't happen overnight, and I'm still growing. I'm still learning, still trying to go, go to a whole nother level in my plan and, and how I minister to people through my plan. Like I'm still trying to just grow in that area. Um, but yeah, man, I, I, I taught myself how to play and, and, and what, what's crazy is like, when I was learning how to play and stuff like that, like when I, I, I felt like, you know, I would, I would forget the new stuff that I, I would learn that day, like if I learned a new chord progression or a passing chord, right? I, I used to have that fear, man, so, mm-hmm. Um, to any Vera out there, man, if you. Are in that place. If you feel like you will never grow or you may forget something new that you learned and you want in your bag so bad, like never worry about that. You know? Because number one, spiritually God is gonna always like download stuff in your spirit, in your mind to your ear while you're practicing. He's gonna always download new stuff. And even if you forget that new thing, like. You're going to get better. The more time you put in, you're going to get better. You're gonna grow you. Yeah, dude, that's great. I think that a lot of keys players who are 15, 16, they just have so much going on maybe at school or something. Didn't you play sports? I played sports, yeah. I thought you played some sports. I feel like sometimes maybe, you know, that high school team or whatever it is kind of takes precedent or, or sometimes even, prioritizing like this really high GPA even. Yeah. Which are important things like. Yeah. You know, being a good athlete, being a good student, but also sometimes music can go to the wayside as far as actually developing it. Yeah. You're going back to re Okay. I think that's really cool that you're going back to, to school, to finish a degree. To learn the music, to, yeah. Learn the music theory. You can already play proficiently. And do you think it's harder to actually learn to read once you're already proficient in how to like actually play? Absolutely. Because you know. I believe like your ego and your pride can get in the way. Yeah. And talk about that, man. It could tell you so many things. Like, oh, okay. Like you may not need the reading, or, um, like from my experience, like when I was learning how to read, you know, when I was at gas estate, it was just, it wasn't hard per se. To be honest with you, bro, it is just, I didn't put the necessary time that I needed to put in mm-hmm. To learn that stuff. Because when you, when you learn how to read and stuff like that, to be able to retain that knowledge, you just have to put the time in, day in and day out Totally. To practice that stuff. So it just, I just never like, looked at reading as, oh, like man. This is what I want to do. Totally. Like, 'cause I, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. So, um, absolutely. So yeah, that it could get in the way, but man, if you can get past that. Man, it just opens up the doors for so many other things. Yes, sir. And your mind to, to so many other things. So that's why I want to go back and Yes. And, and get that under my belt, man. 'cause if I could get that and learn how to read some jazz and some classical, there you go. Add that to my bag. There you go, man. I, I would be All right. Talk a little bit about your church culture, like. What all instruments do you have there? Do you have, uh, both keys? Do you have ox keys? Do you have organ as well? Um, are y'all using full tracks? Maybe some loops. Tell us all about your church culture, man. So, uh. I'll tell you about the setup first. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. The setup is actually pretty cool. Gotta like, okay, let's, let's hear it. Let's hear it. So my top board is a North Stage three. Come on. And the bottom board is a montage eight. Oh man, that's a setup, not the mx. That's a setup though. It is nice though. That's nice. And man, like the key bed on the eight. I love it, man. And to be able to like use my soul. My layout when it comes to sounds, my main patch is the nor I probably go, um, what's, what's the one I love now? Um, velvet Grand. Oh, okay. Velvet is so nice. Yeah. Or, uh, mellow Grand. Yeah. Or mellow. Um, upright Me Upright, yeah. Yeah. And I think it's Velvet Upright, or is it? I think it's the, I don't know, it might be velvet upright, I think that I really like. Okay. Um, so that'd be like my main patch. And then I'll go EP chorus. Um, I, I'll incorporate like a pad and, and some strings. Um, and, and, and I'll have at least like one brass patch. Um, so that's like the setup. Um, and we, we do run stems. Um, and sometimes like I'll arrange a song and we'll do the arrangement on Sunday. So we do run stems. And one thing that um, I think is we, we need to talk about for a second is the, the value of production in a church or anywhere, but in a church service. Sometimes certain churches won't value production as much and sometimes there's some corners cut. When it comes to production and, um, I don't wanna throw anyone under the bus, but yeah, I have been to some places where I'll just, I'll just throw out some examples. That's a great topic, bro. That's a great topic. Yeah, I just, you know, and there have been some, some things, even doing some gigs with you in the past. Um, some limitations we had for inputs and other things. Come on, man. I have seen. Keys players just combine like six different things in this one board, and then the game structure's not very good and it's like an output of all that and it sounds a mess. Or what's even worse is the A drummer who puts all of their inputs in a little small mixer inside, and then they'll give a two mix to the board. I don't know who said that was a great idea. But it's not a great idea. No, no. And if you're doing that, it's probably just because you don't have the input count, which is totally fine. Like if you have a 16 channel snake up there, snake. I was gonna say, yeah. And you can't out, you know, do it. But talk about the importance of production. Anything that you've learned along the way as far as that goes. I think it's very important and in my own opinion, I don't think, I don't think. All of our churches prioritize what it means to have great, uh, great equipment for musicians in just because, like, man, it's needed. We, you know, I was, you know, I don't, I don't wanna throw anybody under the bus, but from my experience, it is just. I don't think they value that. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. Um, you need to be able to have an inner system. You need to be able to have enough channels on your snake. You need to be able to have a stage box to be able to run your, your online mix and stuff like that. So, you know, I, I think that's the biggest problem. And a lot of it has to do with the mentality of the church. Yes. The church can be, you know, small-minded in how they think. You know, things should be ran instead of thinking big minded and having the stuff in place so that, because if the stuff is in place, you know, as a musician, you're put in the best position to be able to execute. And to put your best foot forward totally on your instrument because you feel comfortable. Like Dion said, the best, if I feel good, I'm gonna play good. There you go. That's right. That's right. Come on. And if I don't feel good, I'm not gonna play good. Like, I mean, I'm gonna give it everything I have and it's gonna sound good, but it's not gonna be on the level of where it could be. That's good. That's good. If I'm comfortable, like if I'm playing on some Pearl Customs. Yes. With some, with some, with some, with some, uh, some HHX symbols. Oh, now, you know what I mean? Or if I'm playing on the north stage three, like I'm not playing on a, uh, a cassio, like, you know what I mean? Exactly. It's, and, and, and it kind of frustrates me because you have some churches where it's like, it's like they just keep moving on and they put other things. They prioritize other things. Right. You know, that needs. You know, attention and stuff like that. Sure, sure. But man, the equipment in the church is one of the most essential things to, to be taken care of in the church. I understand. Period. Yes. You know what I mean, hundred for that. That's, that's how I feel about it. Come on, come on. Have you ever gone to, um, any, any studios and the organ just doesn't have, they just don't have the, any pedals? Yeah, I've been, no, I've been to a session. Okay. Okay. And was told, man, you gonna have this, you gonna have this. And I get there and no pedals like, oh man. Organized service. Oh man. We just don't care. We just move on. We record and it's like, oh dang. Come on, man. Like, yes. So talk a little bit about the importance of ear training and the national number system. So, um, I think they both go hand in hand, like training your ear to be able to learn the number system like. That's how you train, that's how you train your ear and that's how you learn the number system. Yeah. Um, when did you first learn it and when did you first, like when did it first click to you? Do you remember? I learned so, um, I think I had the ear before I had anything else. I, my, one of my musical heroes, um. Brandon Jones that played for Ty Trit. Oh man, he's top one for me, man. Incredible. Um, I heard him play, um, at one of the concerts they had and that video like made me want to play keys. You know what mean? That's awesome. Yeah. Um, I think it's off the campground. Um. YouTube channel? I think so. Okay. I can't remember. Uh, but Brandon Jones is, man, he's always gonna be top one for me. Um, just because he had his own sound and he, he, he was just the trendsetter. I think he just changed the game for board players and how to approach. You know, gospel music and just approach this main keys playing. Amazing. Him, Joseph Pryor from Baltimore. Yeah. Okay. Changed the game for me big time. And you're originally from Baltimore, right? I'm from Baltimore. That's cool. Um, and hearing him play, it was like, wow, like I gotta have at least half of that in my bad. Yeah. Like what you got, bro. Like, um, Joseph, um. Kenny Shelton, Kenneth Shelton. That produces for Jonathan Nelson. Awesome, bro. Yeah, he's one of my heroes too. Um, Paris Bowens. Yes. Um, and when it comes to organ playing, Glenn is like number one for me. Glenn Gibson? Yes. Yes. Um, so crazy man. Crazy man. Oh, very musical man. Jayden Arnold. Yeah. Kevin Powell. Corey Henry. Yes, bro. Um. So tho those people like, and there's many more like, oh yeah, I enjoy, like the people in my generation a lot. Mm-hmm. Um, man, I can't forget, uh, Von Harry, um, from Florida. Come on. Can't forget him. Um, but it is, the list goes on. The list goes on. Yeah. I just look, I can tell even with the people that you're li that you're listing, I can see you've taken a lot of, some of those. Things that they do. Yeah. As well as far as the, the running lines and the syncopation. Yeah, the upbeats. You're, you know, if it's beats like right here, you're always like, yeah. You know, you're, it is just like, okay, I can see that coming out. Um, and, and that's another thing, Carson, like, I don't just listen to people to just. Like take and add it to mind. Like, you know what I mean? We all do that, but you know, 'cause we get inspiration from other people and we make it our own. But I try to listen to like why they do what they do. Like the theory, like why does this make sense? Yes, totally. You know what I'm saying? Like, why did you go to the six instead of the two? Like mm-hmm. And their voicings like, yes. You know what I mean? So totally. Mike Burrell too, like, yes. Oh my God. When it comes to voicings. Like he's number one for me. Like I, I got people in different categories. Right, right, right. You know what I'm saying? Voicing and then just playing and then yes. Solo in like, you know what I mean? So Micai George coming from Birmingham, Alabama, originally from Baltimore, but he's lived in in Georgia as well. Yeah. So you've kind of been all over, uh, recording right now in Nashville, Tennessee. But thanks to Micai for being on today. He's gonna take it away, uh, at the keyboard here. An Afrobeat song, which I don't know if we've ever done any Afrobeat song before on here, so I'm looking forward to that. Okay. And then also in, in It with the slow worship ballad. Um, but thanks again to Micai being on today, and thank y'all for viewing. Love. Family. Family, family, love. I want to thank my brother Carson, first and foremost for this opportunity. Um, I'm very thankful to be on this podcast, to help inspire and influence people that want to, you know, be in this industry and, and do the things that we do. Um, so I'm here to just help push that vision, to help anyone out. And 'cause I, I was once in that place and still in that place of learning and development, development and growing. So, but yeah, guys, I'm doing, um, here is holy. by transformation worship. I love this song so much. It's such a beautiful song. It speaks to the heart. You, you'll, you'll understand what I'm talking about when, I mean when it speaks to the heart once you hear the song and the lys and how warming it is. So this is song I'm gonna do, and I hope you guys enjoy. And also, let's shout out the atmosphere pad. That's what you guys hear right now, man, this thing right here is a game changer. For musicians, producers, especially if you're in the gospel settings. Um, CCM setting, um, just setting that atmosphere. You got so many different patches. We have five patches. You could change the key, you could change, um, your patches. Of course. Um, you got your volume knob. It's, it's cool. But we'll get right into the song though. The secret shall in the shadow of. The. The shadow of the.